It’s been 12 months since a mob of American citizens, driven by the false belief that the presidential election had been stolen from Donald Trump, attacked the US Capitol. The insurrectionists couldn’t overturn the election results, but they did make us question basic assumptions about the state of American democracy.  

On this episode, host Sarah Baldwin ‘87 and producer Dan Richards talked with experts at Watson and Brown about the attack. They asked scholars of political science and international affairs: what did the insurrection teach us about the state of American politics? How has it changed us? And, perhaps most important: what do we need to do to protect our institutions going forward?

Guests featured on this episode:

• Wendy Schiller, Professor of Political Science and Director of the A. Alfred Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy
• Juliet Hooker, Professor of Political Science at Brown University 
• Rose McDermott, Professor of International Relations at the Watson Institute
• Stephen Kinzer, Senior Fellow in International and Public Affairs at the Watson Institute

Learn more about the Watson Institute’s other podcasts. 

Read what other experts at Watson had to say in the immediate aftermath of the insurrection.